Amy Ammidon and her brother Harry had the never-to-be-sufficiently-appreciated good fortune to be the children of Aunt Adeline’s brother, and to partake consequently in the lustre of her ancestral glories. At the time of the incident, the particulars of which have been communicated to me, Mr. Ammidon, who had been a prosperous merchant, had met with reverses in business, which compelled him to circumscribe his expenditures. Harry was supposed to be traveling in Europe; and Aunt Adeline, much to the chagrin of all concerned, had undertaken to supply the void in the family, occasioned about a year before by the death of an affectionate mother and wife, by taking up her residence amongst them. Such were the circumstances of the little group early in the spring of 1842.
What a dear, artless, sunny-tempered creature was Amy! Vainly, vainly has the limner tried accurately to trace her face and figure. He deserves credit for what he has done. I can see a resemblance—a strong one, in the picture which the graver of Gimbrede has transferred to steel. But where is the ever-varying expression, the sparkling animation of lip and eye, too evanescent and too mutable to be daguerreotyped even by memory with fidelity? Art can do much, but it cannot do justice to such a Protean beauty as Amy.
Although born in the city—although the din of Broadway was the first noise that broke upon her infant slumbers—Amy was as much out of place in New York, with its reeking gutters, its eternal omnibuses and its “indignation processions,” as a pond lily would be in a tanner’s pit. The country, with its wealth of foliage, its fields and its wild flowers, was her delight. The anticipation of visiting it seemed to be alone sufficient to fill her heart with cheerfulness during the winter months. A little cottage, in Westchester county, to which the name of Glenwood had been given, and which had not been sacrificed in the general wreck of her father’s property, was her beau ideal of Paradise. And a delicious spot it was—cool, sequestered, rich in its smooth lawns and ancient forests, and commanding a fine view of Long Island Sound, from which a fresh breeze was wafted in the hottest days of summer. I cannot imagine a more suitable place at which to introduce Amy to the friendly regards of my readers.
But before I proceed, let me express my regret that a rigid adherence to truth and candor will not permit me to conceal the fact that there was one trait of character in which Amy was lamentably and unaccountably deficient. Notwithstanding the lessons and the example of her respectable aunt—notwithstanding the hereditary blood in her veins—notwithstanding the family tree and the family pictures, Amy had not one particle of that praiseworthy and truly disinterested pride which springs from the contemplation of the superiority of some remote ancestor over ourselves. She had not sense enough to see (poor thing!) why the circumstance of her great grandfather’s having been a bishop was a sufficient proof of her own orthodoxy and worth, or what her grandmother’s merit had to do with hers. Had she been in the habit of quoting poetry, she might have adopted the base-spirited sentiment expressed by Pope:
What can ennoble fools, or knaves, or cowards?
A great fallacy, and one which never failed to excite the vehement and proper indignation of Aunt Adeline! I am sorry that at the very outset I am compelled to tell these things of Amy, but, as they illustrate her conduct on an important occasion, they could not well be omitted.
It was a bright and beautiful afternoon in June. The air from the water was fresh and elastic. The bees about Glenwood were plying a brisk business among the clover, and the birds were singing as if their life depended on the amount of noise they could make. Amy stole in from the piazza that encircled the cottage, and, with her apron full of newly plucked flowers, sat down in the big leathern armchair in the library to arrange a nosegay. To one who could not sympathize with her admiration of their fragrance and beauty, her delight would have seemed almost childish, for she kissed them and laughed, and laughed and kissed them again, then put her forefinger to her mischievous lips, and whispered “hush!” as if warning herself against intrusion, then shrugged her ivory shoulders and laughed once more, as if congratulating herself upon the undisturbed enjoyment of some interdicted pleasure.
But Amy was mistaken in supposing that she was alone and unobserved, for at that moment Aunt Adeline, who had been watching her antics from behind a door, burst in upon her with an exclamation which made her start from her seat and drop the half-formed nosegay, and scatter the flowers upon the floor, while she stood trembling like a culprit, with one hand grasping her apron, and her left elbow instinctively resting on a couple of large volumes which concealed a whole wilderness of pressed flowers.
And what was Amy’s crime? Listen, and perhaps you may find out.
“So, Miss—so!” screamed Aunt Adeline, at the top of her voice, which, in its melody, resembled a Scotch bag-pipe more than a Dorian flute. And having uttered these monosyllables, she tossed herself into the vacated chair, as if preparing for a reprimand of some length. Then, pointing to the abandoned flowers, she sternly asked—“How came you by those flowers? Speak, minx!”